


Lost & Last Letters

by 107th (FeelsVomit)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Letters, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Original Character Death(s), SHIELD, Soldiers, Unrequited Love, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-23 20:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10726704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelsVomit/pseuds/107th
Summary: War is chaos at its finest. Things get lost, lives, land and letters.The missing letters that Steve and Bucky never found, never sent, and never arrived.





	Lost & Last Letters

War is chaos at its finest. Things get lost, lives, land and letters. found. Letters are flimsy, burnt easily, ruined by water. Paper is hard to find, the words to write harder.

When it all started Bucky wrote home a lot. Home was his family, home was Steve. He told them what he could. What wouldn't get censored, what wouldn't make worried, what wouldn't scare them. Sometimes he knew exactly what to say, other times he struggled for any words. Now he was struggling for words.

He chewed on the end of a pencil as though his mouth could find the words, and so he didn't smoke. Smokes were rationed. He'd save those for when he was stressed, plus after forever of being near Steve's lungs he'd grown into the habit of smoking alone when he needed to think. Here he was always surrounded by others. He looked around the other soldiers. They too were slowly fabricating a lie that they hoped would make it home.He looked at the guy next to him, he was pouring words onto the page.

"Who you writing to?" Buck asked.

"My mother, she don't like that I'm here."

Bucky nodded, none of them liked being here. The families just replicated the feeling. Once he'd finished his letter and Bucky's was still blank, they started talking. Talking about anything that wasn't here with them.

"Who you trying to write too? Your girl or something?" He asked.

"Yeah something like that" Bucky muttered, thinking of blonde hair and blue eyes.

The guy's letter got back to the mother. He didn't. He was shot the next day.

> **'Try to forget my faults and remember me only as your very loving son'**

It was the evening before the procedure. Steve had packed everything up. He was alone in the dorm though. He found the letters Bucky had written him. He sat on the bed and read them, hearing Bucky's voice echo through his head. He hadn't replied in a while. He'd been busy with the training, and constantly exhausted. He felt bad, but he didn't know where to write too. Plus he'd be joining Buck soon, after tomorrow at least.

"Is there something on your mind?" Erskine asked, taking a sip of his drink. Steve's eyes jumped to the box with Bucky's letters.

"I was thinking about how I haven't written to my friend in too long. He's out there fighting, I should have sent more letters." Steve confessed.

"Is this a friend you're close to?" The doctor asked.

"He's my only friend." He said rubbing the back of his neck gingerly.

"Why do you feel guilty about not writing to him? You're busy enough to have an excuse." Erskine said before sipping his drink and savouring it.

Steve paused for a moment. He knew he had the excuses, but excuses are never enough. Bucky had always been there for him.

"Bucky was the only one who didn't look at me like I was useless. He's done so much for me and I couldn't even right letters to him." Steve looked at his hands, he felt guilty.

"What would your friend think of what you're doing? Perhaps you haven't written because you can't tell him what you're doing, not even the censored version." Erskine said.

Steve thought about how Bucky would react. He remembered the time Steve broke his nose for the first time in a fight. Bucky had cursed and worried and lectured Steve, all before his ma came home to find Bucky holding a bloody cloth to her son's nose, and had followed his lead. He remembered Bucky lecturing him after every fight, when he went out in the rain, when he did anything Bucky thought was reckless or stupid. The main thing in that category was anything that could get Steve killed or seriously injured.

"He'd think I was being reckless." Steve said looking down.

"Well, maybe you are." Erskine replied, "You are undergoing a procedure that will change you drastically. One that has only been done once before, and that was with Schmidt."

"You think this is reckless?" Steve asked.

"The serum has been tested, the theory all lines up neatly, but then again you could see where your friend was coming from."

"I would argue that jumping on a grenade is much more reckless. Wouldn't you?" Erskine asked smiling. Steve shook his head and cracked a smile.

> **'I've been going to write this letter to you for some little time now, but up to now have hardly had an opportunity, but recent events out here have urged me to write it. It is addressed to you in thankfulness' for past years.**
> 
> **In my last battle, things were going hard, and only a handful of our lads came back in one piece. It was at a moment when my last seemed near, that my mind took me away from the battle-field away from mangled human flesh, heroism and death, to you at home and Audrey**.'

_July 1943_

_Dear Stevie,_

_How's life back home? Are your lungs giving you any trouble? I hope you're fit and healthy, but not enough for them to send you over here_ _._

_Europe is different to the city. It's just endless miles of fields, forest and mud. Steve there's more mud here than the rest of this Earth. We crosses paths with a battalion, we talked and shared cigrattes. One fella told me that he was fighting for God's green earth, I think these Europeans are starting to lose it. Everything is grey or muddy. When we get to shower, the next second you're dirtier than a kid who's rolled around on the floor behind Mr Dozick' s store. How is that old man? Still there?_

_I know I'm writing a lot but there isn't much else to do. Europe is pretty big and there isn't a fight in every field. It was easier finding you in a fight than any out here, luckily. God help us all if you start a fight over here, you'd run ragged trying to find the next one. I hope you're not getting into fights without me there. I suppose that's a bit too much to hope, so I hope you're getting into fights you can win or fights you'll survive. Your Ma's ghost would chase me down all the way over here I'd anything happened to you. So don't do anything stupid._

_I hope to hear from you soon, punk. It gets lonely out here._

_From_

_Bucky_

Steve got most of Bucky's letters. A couple he sent were lost. A couple he never sent. Unfortunately travelling around the trenches, travelling selling bonds and touring, and everything else made it harder for the letters to reach each other.

> **'Imagine the time when the war is over and we are living together, would it not be better to live on from now on the memory of our life together when it was at its most golden pitch.'**

The letters Bucky got, he kept in his jacket close to him. He stopped getting ones off Steve after a while. The ones before had been vague. He figured Steve didn't want a useless soldier half the world away. He still kept writing he couldn't bring himself to stop. His mind told him that Steve didn't care, and that he should stop. He couldn't bring himself to stop.

_Hey Steve,_

_I know I should stop writing so often._

Bucky paused looking at the paper. He didn't have much time to write it, sunset would be soon and it's harder writing in the dark. He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. Why bother lying? He thought to himself. He looked down and just wrote. Telling Steve of the nothingness here, how boring it was inbetween the bloody violence. He mentioned a couple of the soldiers he talked to, he talked about how he missed home. He made sure to write that he missed home and Steve. He wrote four sides by the time the sun went down. He knew what to say when he was telling the truth, telling Steve how he felt. Bucky liked the confession the letters gave him. It gave him something to do with his emotions, rather than keeping them all locked up. He re-read the last few lines. 

_Then again, I said that in the last letter, didn't I? I'm sure I said it in the one before, too._

_Didn't I tell you soldiers are lonely?_

_Write back if you can. I'll see you when I get back home._

_Your friend, Bucky_

He sent that letter. Steve would get it later. Much later. 

Along with two others that were stuck in Mail rooms, and struggling to chase after Steve. Not everyone was as good at that as Bucky.

> **'Yesterday we went for a bath, why I don’t know as we are just as dirty again. However we were all standing in the open waiting our turn to get in the showers which are all out door affairs. The lads were as bare as the day they were born when an old lady comes strutting into view looks at us and grins. Talk about embarrassing — not half. Mitch will get a great kick out of this. You will no doubt remember all my lovely pleats in my uniform; well you should see it now. Lots of dirt and grease. My poor nerves.'**

  _June 1943_

  _Hey Stevie,_

_I had a dream last night.  I don't know how I slept over the noise. It's always noisy here. I hope they pull us back soon, so we can get some peace away from the front lines. It was me and you sitting on the train to Coney Island. It's sunny and warm but no one is sweating or panting. We're sipping lemonade and I'm polishing an apple on my trouser leg. I can't see the faces of the other passengers but you're just there talking a mile a minute about something. I think it was an artist but it could have been about food. You're talking so fast I'm scared you're gonna work yourself into a state. Then you just stop talking and the train stops. Suddenly I'm in my uniform and you're getting off. I call out to you to stop you, the doors close behind you before I can get to you. You turn and say something to me I don't know what. Then the train moves and pulls up at another stop, I get off and everyone's waiting. You, Ma, Becky, you're all there. The war is over and we all survived. You probably don't want to here about my dreams, but it was a nice dream. I'd like to see you all waiting for me when I come back._

_I was thinking about what you said, before I left. I try and focus on it. You want to fight so that you could protect people and ideals, I like to think I'm doing that for you. I'm doing a pretty poor job but it's better than you doing it. It's bloody, dirty work. The worse thing is that it never really stops. We're in a war, it doesn't stop for a minute and if you wanna stand and clear your head you lose it. The men who have been here longer they have a different look in their eyes. When I first got here there was a man who'd been here since the start by some miracle, he looked older than his age. You could tell he saw more in the mud than most. Each day I think I look more like him._

_Steve, write to me if you can. Tell me of home and the noisy pipes, cold water and the food that looks like a fancy_ _restaurant compared to the stuff they give us here. I miss Brooklyn. I miss the little corner of the world we have. I think deep down I'm fighting for that. I try and chalk it up to the big loving ideals, but I'm fighting for our shitty apartment, our home. I'm fighting for you._

_Look after yourself Stevie._

_From,_

_Bucky._

Steve was in New York whilst Bucky wrote, mourning the death of his friend Erskine. Being told he wouldn't be used as a soldier but as a marketing puppet.

> **'I read a few lines the other day which ran along a vein of recent thoughts in my head. I have been trying to abolish from my mind the following: fear, worry, impatience, anger, intolerance, hate, selfishness, and doubt, and to substitute in their place courage, activity, tolerance, love, compassion, friendliness, generosity, and justice..**.' 

 Letters of dead men were found all over. Never sent. Many just rottened away or remained hidden. One was never found. That one was not addressed to anyone.

_October 1943_

_My friend,_

_I'm sorry I'm writing this. I should have told you long ago. Or maybe I should never tell you. If I'm still the coward I've always been then this letter will never be sent. You'll never know. I want to tell you but there's no way it would change anything for the better. I'd just loose you, and that's worse._

_I love you, I'm in love with you. I'm sorry to tell you like this and to tell you now, but I need to let it out before it distracts me and causes causes me to wind up with a bullet in my head. I'm trying to figure out when I fell for you but I think it's been forever. I miss home and I miss you. We never had much so I didn't think they'd be much to miss, but my God I miss you. I think being away from you has made it worse. I could ignore it before go to work, go dancing and drink. There's nothing here. No distractions. I need distractions to stop loving you. Or to at least lie to myself._

_I don't think I'm gonna make it home. So this is a cowardly last confession. Everyday the ground seems to be more none and flesh than grass or mud. There sure is a lot of mud here. I don't think I'll ever feel clean again._

_John, the one who shared his cigarettes with me, used to write to his wife all the time and tell her he loved her. He looked at me and told me to tell you. He didn't know, but he said I had that look in my eye. I packed up the last of his things earlier to send back to his wife. She won't even get a body._

_I think of the graveyard where your ma is buried. It's nice there. I won't make it back, my body will be left over here and I'll never come back. I've accepted it like how I've accepted that I love you. Both, as it turns out, are inevitable._

_It's cold here. Colder than our apartment ever got in those long winters. I don't like the cold. I think about those nights where we had no heating just old blankets and each other. I think I could face the cold with you. All this frozen ground and ice would be better with you, but then I don't want you anywhere near this. I'd die a thousand times in this place if it meant you never stepped foot in Europe._

_I love you Stevie. I'm sorry I'm a coward. I'm sorry I'm gonna die and leave you alone. Even though you might want that now. I'm sorry that I love you._

_From_

_Bucky_

The letter was lost somewhere. The next day, Bucky and the rest of the 107th were imprisoned by Hydra. Any letters he had in his jacket were lost, the ones in his locker parcelled up with everything else to go along with the letter informing his family of his untimely death.

 Then Steve appeared. Straight out a drug infused haze and grabbed him with strong hands. He was taller and stronger. He looked more like a warrior than the artist's angel he'd been before. His eyes were the same. His jaw wider. His skin tougher. His body bigger and stronger. 

Steve carried him out of the fire. Only then did Bucky believe he was real because he was safe and Steve was safe, and this couldn't be heaven because he still heard his heart racing.

Steve dragged Bucky into another fight, a war, but Bucky would have ran into this one with or without Steve. The little guy had rubbed off on him after years. Worn him down and given him principles, Bucky thought to himself. Steve was there so Bucky didn't need to write to him. He could talk to him. Touch him, watch him, and know he was real and he was alright. Though every time Steve did something reckless he could feel Sarah Rogers giving him that look from up there. Bucky would inturn give it to Steve. Despite not needing to, Bucky wrote one more letter in those years they fought Hydra. 

  _Steve,_

_I know you're okay because I'm watching you sleep. I haven't watched you like this since an infection looked like it would steal your breath permanently. You're bigger now. Stronger. Stronger than any of us, stronger than me. But then again you always were._

_You're still stubborn,  my God you're stubborn. I'm just glad I have an aim as good as your ability to be reckless. Half way around the world and I'm still looking out for ya. I hope your Ma would be pleased with me for that. I promised her I'd keep you safe, so I gotta get you through this war. It doesn't matter what happens to me, I just need you to get through. You're worth ten of me. The second you land back in Brooklyn you'll be the most eligible bachelor. Not that you need to be, since Agent Carter seems pretty sweet on you. To be honest you're pretty sweet on her too. Peggy is good, she'll be good for you. You'll go and have a bunch of little Rogers  (or Carters) running around and you'll have the perfect ending to the story of a hero. (You have to name your first kid after me, I don't care if it's a girl, Jamie is a good name for a girl. I did not get in this many fights for you to name it after Dum Dum or Morita)._

_I'm scared you don't need me anymore. I suppose I'm more scared that you won't want me around anymore. I know I should tell you this but I've never been good with feelings or talking to you about them. So I guess I'm writing this to make sure I don't yell it in the middle of taking down Hydra. It's not long now till we wipe out the bastards. Only two more based. I can't wait till we destroy the last base and you punch red skull in his, well red skull. I heard you've punched Hitler a lot as practice for this. Got yourself a mean right hook. I'm desperate to destroy hydra, they did imprison me. I should probably tell you something about that, but again I'm not the best at talking. Also I don't think you'll want me around after. I'll tell you after the war when it won't matter no more._

_I wish I could tell you everything Stevie. I really want to, but there's too much at stake and we're at war._

_Love Bucky._

Before Steve stirred, or Bucky finished his watch he'd thrown the letter on the fire. It glowed and melted into the flames. That was the last letter Bucky Barnes wrote.

> **'A man is just a mere human being, Katy, and if I seem crude or untactful, I’m sorry. You asked for whatever news I could tell you, and I’m afraid it’s all bad. Con was on a strafing mission and when he went down on a German truck, he didn’t pull up soon enough.'**

It's the future before anyone reads the letters. In the future no one writes to Steve. Everyone he knows is dead or has too frail hands to clutch something to write with. He visits Peggy though. Whilst Steve knows little of the future, she remembers little of it too. Alzheimer's Steve is told. When he first read that she was still alive, he knew in his head that 70 years had passed. In his head he still saw red lipstick and beauty and youth.

When he saw her, she was still beautiful. He knew that if he hadn't taken the plane down, he would have watched her grow old with grace. Maybe he would have too. But he, like his father never grew older than the war. She looks at him differently. There is more wisdom and more wondering. They both can't help but think of what might have been. Steve stays until she can't stay awake any longer. She makes him promise to come back. This time being quicker. He keeps visting her, she tells him of what he missed. He proud of SHIELD, her life's work. The SHIELD she tells him of, the things that she and it have done. She probably broke some rules but she was the boss and she might not remember the rules or care about them. The SHIELD that he works for is the modern day version. He's still in the past and therefore looks old fashioned and out of place. He's adjusting quickly, or at least people say he is. It's like jumping into the sea, not drowning is the low bar of success.

He loves seeing Peggy, but it's hard. The disease she has is hard. The future is hard. Not crying, and curling up in a ball after visiting is hard.  The nightmares in the night are hard.

It's a regular visit for Steve, he brought flowers that the nurse ran off with to find them water. He likes filling Peg's room with bright flowers. She deserves bright colours and sweet smells.

"I fought for these. No one else put up much fight at the time." Peggy said, her voice croaking. No one had the heart to take the private letters from Peggy in her mourning. Someone has tried but they hadn't gotten anywhere. There was a metal box on the floor. Small but old. Steve looked at it before pulling it into his lap. Peggy had told him last time he came to visit she had something for him

"They took the opened ones, the ones they wanted. You were their hero and they wanted to show you off." Steve looked into the box. Several unopened letters sat musty and old. Like his soul.

"The personal ones that were sealed I kept for you. Howard helped me get them all." She said softly. Her eyes clouded with reminiscent, Steve couldn't tell if she remembered his death at this moment or not.  
He looked at the envelopes containing sealed words. If he had never come back, they would have never been read. He looked at Pegs for a second. She was smiling at him so he smiled back. He carefully looked through them. He recognised the scribbles on the front. One from little Becky Barnes, two from girls from his dance trope. The remaining three of lost letters from Bucky sat there. Steve didn't know about the others, he never would. He froze looking at the scrawl of his name on the letter.  
Peggy reached out and grabbed his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze in comfort.

"Thanks doll" He said before she drifted off to sleep. He took them back to his apartment. That night he cried the whole night allowing himself to mourn for himself, for the life he lost, for his dead friends. He cried for Bucky. He couldn't open the letters. Those were the last words Bucky would ever say to him. 

He didn't want to hear any last words. He'd heard the last ones Bucky had said. He'd heard Bucky's scream.  

It's another month before he can bring himself to open any of them. He opens the first one from the girls. It's Mary's writing but it's signed from all of them. They were sent back home after Steve saved those 300 men. They told him how he'd been good on the tour with them, and how they were proud of him for being a hero. Several of them had written their personal address by their names, inviting him to write anytime.  

He goes and sees who's still alive and who has died. Its a sick past time but he nothing else to do. The chaos of the future had brought aliens and more war but that too was now over. He hadn't been fully approved as a agent of shield yet so he can't throw himself into that. Steve reads about the girls. He sees most of them are now old with loving husbands and children. A few are still alive, sitting in various homes. It's another month before Steve opens another.  This is a letter from a couple months later. They're writing to check up on him, they say they hope he's okay and that he's doing the good he told them he wanted to do. What he confessed on long nights after long days. Looking at the postal marks it would have reached the base a week after he crashed the plane after a month of travelling across the war to get to him.

 He opens the one from Becky next. A few weeks after the last one from the girls. It's her birthday the day he opens it. He doesn't think that it was chance. Becky sent him a couple letters during the war, this one follows the rest. It's sweet and he can hear her reading every word. He can't research into the Barnes. He killed their son. He didn't even send a body home for them. He couldn't read about the people who had treated him as family.

He sits looking around his apartment. Drinking, not that it effects him. He doesn't cry. The letter cuts deep through him.

_Look after my brother Steve, and both of you come home._

_From_

_Becky_  

He failed Becky just as he'd failed Bucky. Just like how he'd failed the whole Barnes clan.

It's 6 months later when he can bring himself to open the first one from Bucky. The envelope tears ragged as Steve's hands try to open it. It's too old to handle gentleness, Steve's hands too strong, too desperate to be gentle.

                                                           _August 1943_

_Hey Steve,_

_It's your pal Bucky again. I haven't heard from you in a while, bet your too busy wooing all the single women in New York. Have you found your dance partner yet? Some girl who won't mind if you step on her feet. Real sweet and real pretty. Remember to leave enough girls for all us fellas over here. We need someone when we come back. If all the girls are hung up on you then you're gonna be getting in even more fights._

_It's the summer so your lungs shouldn't be giving you much trouble. Just remember to eat well and that Mrs Hallels will always give you a bit if you sweep her porch for her. How is it back home? Is it dry? I don't think Europe has a proper summer. 3 dry days and they call it summer even if the trenches haven't dried out yet. To give them credit when the sun shines it warns your skin and feels like hope, until the gun fire and shells ruin it for you. I hope you're having a good summer. I don't think it's hard to beat the one I'm having._

_I hope you're okay. That you're finding jobs and staying out of the war. There's too many men dying out here Stevie, I don't want you to be another one. I know you want to join the fight and if you're not in some jail cell for lying on your enlistment form, or worse saying you're from Jersey, then try and stay out. This is a big war Steve. I won't be able to watch your back and these Nazis don't care who they kill. I know I sound rough but it's war and there's no way to smooth it over._

_And knowing you, you're in a jail cell and not writing to me to tell me I'm right. If I'm right tell me you won't be able to see my smug face but it will be nice to be proven right. It's that or you ran out of paper drawing on everything. I hope you're still drawing. If you're drawing, you're not fighting and then you're safe._

_Stay safe Steve,_

_Bucky._

Steve finished the letter and only then noticed his cheeks were wet. The realisation brought a fresh wave that Steve couldn't control, bigger than the first. He missed Bucky. All the old guilt of not writing to Bucky rose up again and squeezed his throat, choking him with soot-like guilt. He went to bed that night and stared at the ceiling until he fell into dreams of death, heights and screams. He emerged in a cold sweat, shaking and alone.

It's the next week when he opens the next letter. He'd spent the day walking around the city trying to find his home as remains among the future. He doesn't recognise the buildings, the names, the adverts. His home is as different to him as his new body. Different to the old bones but still the same, just better, that's what he tells himself. If he could get used to a new body, he can get used to a new world. He can't help but question if everything is new, if it's really him at all? 

 He needs to hear from someone who knows him. So he reads another of Bucky's letters.

_August 1943_

_Hey punk,_

  _I know I wrote to you not long ago. But a couple weeks over here feels like forever and nothing at all. War and time don't go well together. I'm bored at points and writing to you stops me going mad with boredom. There's enough things to drive you mad out here without boredom pushing you over the edge._

_I was thinking about the fruit from the market. The bruised apples I would pick up on the way back from work. My Ma would check my temperature if she knew I was thinking about fruit. The rations out here taste even worse than the old stuff we would throw together with whatever coins we had in the bottom of our pockets. There's a lot of little things like that I miss. Nothing over here feels familiar. There's not much over here. Every other building is bombed or bullet filled. I don't know what's gonna happen when the war is over. I don't think they can rebuild it all. Especially when the end of the war seems far away._

_Some fellas say that it will be over by the end of the year. I wish I could believe them, but I can't. I think it's gonna be a while. Hopefully not forever, but sometimes I'm scared it will be. The longer the war lasts the more men will die, and the more chance you're one of them. I hope that I come home, I'm scared to say that I will for definite because I don't want to tempt fate. But I wanna come home, see you all. I wanna have some of Ma's cooking, I'm craving all of it. Hell at this point I miss your excuse for cooking._

_Some of the guys say I write to you more than they write to their dolls, but I just say that their dolls won't get themselves nearly killed in a fight every other day. I need to keep reminding you not to get yourself killed or to make sure you don't do anything stupid._

_I've used up all my paper though so it will be while until you hear from me. Keep yourself out of trouble Steve. Promise me that._

_From_

_Bucky._

The letter comforts and cuts. It's like hugging a knife. The cool of the knife doesn't cover the warmth of the blood or the pain of the wound. He feels numb. The ice never creeped inside his chest this much. Breathing gets a little hard, like he's having an asthma attack. He know he can't but part of him wishes he would so Bucky would come and run his back and help him breathe again. It's the future so Bucky can't come and help him and Steve can't lose his breath.

* * *

* * *

It's the anniversary of his Ma's death. He visits her grave. It's still preserved because he was a fallen hero. He stands there for hours until his hands are cold and his feet as tired as his heart. 

Steve picks up the final envelope. It's the thickest. He's saved it for last. These will be the last words Bucky ever says to him. It's the closest to a goodbye he will ever get. He's not sure he wants to read them. Peggy didn't recognise him today without prompting today. Her eyes had a look in them that looked like recognition but he may have been projecting that there. She hadn't been able to say his name without him introducing himself. He can't bring himself to talk about the past after that, he tells her what he's been doing in the future and asks if she likes the flowers. She smiles and says she likes the lilies. He's told by her nurse that she had lilies at her wedding. Steve promises to bring lilies every week. 

Steve takes a deep breath and opens the letter.

_September 1943_

_Hey Steve,_

_I know I should stop writing so often. I bet you're sitting at home berating me for writing letters rather than rescuing damsel, kicking Hitler in the shins - That kind of thing. Well there isn't much of that to do at the moment, there isn't anything going on. What they don't tell you is that most of war is just standing around. Waiting for someone to find you or someone to kill you. We're stationed somewhere on a mountain side that feels a lot like Earth's sweaty armpit. It smells like it too. We're mostly trying to stay out of the rain and complaining._

_The boys are all out smoking but I'm out of cigarettes. That will teach more for wasting them - I could do with one to settle my nerves. I don't know when I started wanting them, I've never been an addict. I mean I never smoked around you, with your lungs and all. Once a week I'd light up if I wanted to, and that would do me. I figure it's the rationing, the second you can't have something you want it a thousand times more. Probably the only reason I miss your ugly mug. But when things get scarce I always want it more._

_I think I'm only craving one because someone said I can't have one. Since when was I this stubborn? I must have spent too much time around you punk._

_Here they try and bread the stubbornness out of you. I don't think it worked with me. Or at least I hope it hasn't. I'm bitter about it all. Then again, I was always bitter wasn't I? The trouble is Brooklyn is so far away I have trouble remembering what everything is like. And what I was like. I hope this war doesn't change me much, not that I was the best before hand._

_I lied about the cigarettes. I've never wasted anything. Never been able to afford to waste. It's only a little lie, to make you feel better. I traded them for paper. I wasn't going to tell you but there's nothing else I wanna tell you or nothing else that won't be censored out. A better story would be I smoked them all after a long night with a couple French girls and Rita Hayworth wanted to share them after I ran into her in Paris. The truth isn't that good. I traded with Turner. He doesn't write home, but he smokes. It wouldn't trade at first, but I wore him down. He doesn't have anyone to write to so he didn't want to trade with me. He only has a father back home who refuses to write to him because Turner lied on his form. He's too young to be here. His father couldn't stand the idea of losing another son. Turner only signed up because his older brother was killed out here. But he gave me the paper, so he smokes and I write to you._

_Maybe you could write to me Steve. I'd like a letter just to know you're okay and that you're safe. You could tell me about home. You could do another of your drawings from out our window. I miss the view. I don't want to pressure you. I just don't want you getting lonely. There's lots of men here so you're never alone but I still get lonely. All soldiers do. We miss home, our friends, our families. They all like letters and gifts. Just a little reminder of home, something to show that's there something worth fighting for being the shells and the foxholes. That there's still a home. That's all you need to get through the night._

_I don't want to pressure you, I know you got better things to do than write a dumb letter to me. I haven't heard from you in a while, Steve. I must have written ten letters and I haven't got a single one back. Maybe I should take the hint and stop. Maybe your letters get lost or Hitler blows them up, or maybe you're out of paper. I keep hoping that you're reading these at home even if you can't reply._

_I don't like to think about what else it could be. No one can get any news out here, and I guess we're all starting to think the worse. Maybe that's just the nature of soldiers. Too much time to think. But it would still be comforting to have a reply._

_I made a resolve, Stevie. I'm gonna send you this, and if I don't get a reply then I'll stop trying. No point wasting paper. I can't stop thinking about you when I got no way of knowing where you are. It's a distraction, and out here that kind of distraction will get you killed. I'm giving it a month and then I'm done. If you don't write back, well I'll just have to accept it._

_Then again I said that in the last letter didn't I? I'm sure I said it in the one before too._

_Write back if you can. I'll see you when I get back home._

_Didn't I tell you soldiers are lonely?_

_Your friend, Bucky_

Steve finished the letter. He knew how lonely soldiers are. The words blurred on the paper and he put the letter down to prevent spoiling it with old years. 

_I'm lonely too Buck_ , he thought to himself. He wanted Bucky. He was alone in the future. He was alone and so very lonely. He wished they'd never pulled him out the ice.

416,800 soldiers died in the war, Bucky was just one of them. At SHIELD headquarters there's a shrine for fallen agents. Bucky's name is written on it. Steve discovered it by mistake, he went to read the names. He didn't recognise all but two; Howard Stark and James Buchanan Barnes. Steve had rushed home after reading it. It was a wall for the dead. Bucky hadn't been dead for a year to him. To everyone else he'd been dead 70. 

People seemed to forget that time had moved on without the captain. The war hadn't been won when he died, today very few remembered it. People treated him as some one used to time, not as a man out of time. When the fireworks went off on the 4th of July, Steve had hidden under the table trying to make himself smaller because all he heard were shells and gun shots. They also forgot that Steve was a soldier, a human not an unbreakable hero. He like many had come back from the war broken. He had no one. And the world didn't care about that war anymore, too many had passed since.

* * *

* * *

Everything changes when Bucky comes back. Every new word is a new set of last words. Steve wants to hear years upon years of last words. Bucky doesn't have the words. Hydra took them. 

The soldier wrote to the Captain after the fall of the SHIELD. It was written with shaky hand on the back of a torn corner of poster.

_Dear Stevie,_

_I'm sorry_

That was it. No name signed because he wasn't sure what it was. The soldier clutched it in his metal hand. The blood have dried and disappeared. The soldiers sat in the rain, motionless. The cold rain wasn't as bad as the ice. The ink on the letter ran and the sodden paper tore itself apart under its own weight.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this and any feedback 
> 
> The block quotes featured are from real letters sent during wartime:  
> Eric Fox Pitt Lubbock, who died at Ypres in 1917 aged 24, wrote to his mother (I know it's a different war but meh)  
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/16/a4035016.shtml  
> https://hiskind.com/hundreds-of-lost-love-letters-between-ww2-gay-couple-found/  
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/99/a4885699.shtml  
> https://postalmuseum.si.edu/warletters/wl_04.html#mckinley  
> https://postalmuseum.si.edu/warletters/wl_04.html#patteeuw


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